A Messy Realisation
by Melody Unrequited
Summary: Bella's been toying with two immortal hearts, with no understanding of the consequences. And Leah's had enough. But is there more to Leah's championing of Jacob than meets the eye?
1. A Messy Realisation

_With all your lies, you're still very lovable._

_-For Emma, Bon Iver_

A slamming door. Desperate, stumbling steps and the low thrum of an engine as it peels down the gravel driveway. Leah stops just before the tree break, to see Jacob at the wheel of some self-righteous vehicle, face desolate and the grim line of his lips determined. Something's wrong.

_Seth? Jake just tore out of here in the leech's car. I'm gonna see what's happening. If I don't come back out within half an hour, you run home. You got it?_

She doesn't wait for an answer. She transforms quickly, her nakedness only emphasising the horrible awareness of how vulnerable she is to attack. She picks up the reeking pile of clothes sent by the suspiciously maternal one that makes her uncomfortable, wrinkling her nose at three pink dresses before finding a long t-shirt probably intended for Jacob. She rolls up the sleeves as she pads lightly to the front door and, not bothering with the courtesy of knocking, she steps across the threshold, the scent of funeral flowers making her gag. She can feel her hands trembling, every sense strained like strings on a guitar, ready to snap. It's eerily quiet in the house, the mechanic, futile breaths of the vampires making invisible hackles raise on the back of her neck.

She follows the wet, lush sound of Bella's heart up the stairs, its weak rhythm making her mouth twist into a sardonic smile. The door whines ominously as it swings inwards and before she can even register the God damn horror show that is this room, the mind reader's staring at her with those burning eyes that make her skin crawl and her sympathy come out from its exile.

"Leah," even his voice is dead. The blonde one glares at her with disdain and Leah stares back until she drops her gaze to the freak show that was once Bella Swan. She's transparent, almost, large, dark eyes dominating her thin face. Leah thinks she might hurl as she registers the distorted lump that juts from her emaciated body. Bella Swan isn't glowing. She isn't radiant and she's definitely not smiling. Bella Swan is dying. Something cold and cruel within her, vindictively, sees this as payback, but a larger part of her couldn't care less, except that when she dies, Jacob will most likely be fucked for life, too. Make that most definitely.

"Leah?" comes the timid, frailty of her voice. Leah internally rolls her eyes. Bella Swan's good at playing the pity card.

"Yeah. I need to have a word with you."

Edward growls lightly under his breath and Bella puts a sickeningly tender hand to his face. The bitter remains of the romantic little girl she used to be makes Leah's heart hurt and she sees Edward's eyes observe her with faint curiosity as Jake's face vaguely materialises in her mind.

"Get the hell out of my head," she snarls, her face lighting up with embarrassment.

He at least had the decency to look shamed as he turned his gaze back to Bella's face. Her wide eyes look up at Leah in fright, turning the loose, gold band on her ring finger anxiously.

Leah counts slowly to ten in her head to stave off the rabid frustration that makes her want to shake the girl.

"Okay?" Again with the drawn out sentences that lilt at the end, like a question. Leah clenches her fists. "What do you want to talk about?"

"What had Jacob so upset before? Not that it's a rare occurrence when he's around you," Leah adds, off-handedly.

"He needed to get some air, " Edward says quietly.

"Some air?" she says doubtfully. "And he needed an Aston Martin to just 'get some air?'"

Edward looks anxiously at Bella, again.

"I can hear the baby's thoughts."

Silence.

"You've got to be kidding me? How old is it? Like six weeks? What's it got say, besides the fact that it's got a killer hankering for blood?"

Edward ignores the jibe with a faint sigh of frustration, "He's extremely developed for his stage of conception."

"I'll say, but what's this got to do with Jacob?" Edward places a hand on the rise of Bella's stomach. A gentle, _loving_ hand. And then it hits her, Jacob had banked on Edward suffering to be greater than his. He wanted Edward to hurt and now they're all playing happy family. And Jake's back where he always is. Alone. In pain. Pining for the pasty little weakling in the bed.

Edward nods. And suddenly all she can see is red. Vibrant, blood red. Heat instills through her veins, its white heat flaring viciously and she can hear her heart filtering it rapidly through her body.

She's lost all control.

"You know what's really ironic, Bella? I mean, you want so badly to be a vampire, a bloodsucker like _them_ and you don't even realise how very similar you are, already. You suck the life out of things. You take and take and take until they're drained and leave them abandoned on the side of the road. You do see that don't you? Jake's been dying a slow death for you over the past year, and, not that I give a royal fuck, but your pretty vampire husband is slowly being eaten alive, too. You're killing them, Bella. Every decision, every pleading _oh Jake, please stay _is slowly poisoning the both of them. And everyone else might be content to let your poison spread, but I'm not. Then again, I'm not captivated with every pathetic beat of your selfish little heart."

Jake's face crumpled in pain as he thinks of Bella, sneaks up on her. Smiling. Laughing. Crying. God damn, sitting. All coloured with the rosy hue of love. The all consuming red in her vision turns green, a deep jade green that wallows thickly into her heart. Envy. She feels her lips flatten above her gum line, aware that in doing so she's proving herself a threat. But she doesn't care, because she realises that all this time, her rage, her loathing, her bitterness has made her blind. Made her blind to her own heart.

She faintly registers the muffled sobs that shake Bella's small body.

"God, don't cry. It gets really old. Instead of crying, how about actually doing something selfless and telling Jake to leave, go away, run as fast as he can and never return. Maybe then I might be able to scrounge up the tiniest scrap of respect for you."

"Get out," his voice is black. The edges of his voice shaking in fury and the faintest glimmer of fear sneaks into her heart. The gentle hand she witnessed before grips her arm tightly, a torniquet, and she registers blondie stroking Bella's hair possessively.

Edward's already pulling her with barely restrained strength and she figures it's his upside down morals that stop him from ripping off her head.

"You're killing him, Bella! And you know it!" she says lowly, her voice carrying just enough so that Bella can hear her. She wants to see her hurt again, hurt like she hurts, but she's being dragged down a glaringly bright corridor.

He opens the front door and pushes her slightly too roughly to be considered gentlemanly.

"I would ask you to rethink ever addressing Bella as you did just now. I won't tolerate it. I won't tolerate you."

_Yeah, buddy? Like I haven't heard that before. Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, __**no one **__tolerates me._

"I'm serious, Leah. If you ever do that again, I will not hesitate in throwing you from this house."

_Quit getting your panties in a bunch. I've said my peace. For now._

The pity in his earnest, black gaze makes something twist viciously in her chest. She prefers the anger and the threats over his pity. She never wanted anyone's pity.

"I won't tell. I promise you that."

_Nothing to tell, buddy. But I do appreciate the whole 'cross your heart and hope to die' thing, even if it's kinda void in your case._

She thinks she sees amusement in the corner of his mouth, but its gone, vanished into the stupid pitying gaze, again.

"But seriously, I won't tell Jacob. I won't tell anyone. "

She thinks of Jacob's face when he looks at Bella - the hopeless, consumed and heartbreakingly sincere planes of his face -and nods to Edward, both confirming and silencing his point.

_I'll catch you around, Leech. And…just make sure Jake's alright, k?_

She breaks into a run, fleeing both that pitying gaze and the messy realisation that she's in love.

In love with Jacob Black.


	2. Nothing's Okay

_Help, I have done it again_

_I have been here many times before _

_Hurt myself again today _

_And, the worst part is there's no-one else to blame._

_Breathe Me, Sia. _

She hears his footsteps before she sees him; the weary, dependable tread that used to be anything but, until he met Bella Swan. She takes a violent drag of her cigarette, watching the smoke dissipate into the dense canopy of the trees, and avoids the constriction of her lungs when she thinks of his face.

"Those things kill 'ya know," Jacob says quietly, voice making her tired just listening to it.

"Yeah, well, not that they do anything much to these lungs, but I figure it adds to the whole I-don't-give-a-fuck-that-my-life's-gone-down-the-shithole attitude," she quips, eyeing him through a hazy coil of cigarette smoke.

He eyes the narrow purse of her lips around the cigarette, speculatively, then the elegant exhale, shaking his head.

"If only," he sighs, the gravity of his eyes making Leah uncomfortable.

"What are you out here for, anyway?" she asks, after another heavy sigh and compression of his shoulders.

"Escaping. Getting some air," he adds, an underlying knowledge to his words.

_Oh, shit. I KNEW that bloodsucker would blab!_

"Oh, yeah?" she replies, wincing at the all too casual draw of her cigarette, "I guess, there's only so much of the Stepford Vampires one can tolerate in a day."

Jake chuckles and she lingers on the stretch of his grin, the flash of teeth, studiously ignoring the way her own mirrors it.

"Seriously, Leah. Edward told me you said something to Bella. I mean, I appreciate the sentiment and all, but I don't think she needs it right now. She's…well, she's not well."

"I know. It's tragic and sad and cruel. Still doesn't change what she did when she _was _well," Leah replies, and she knows it sounds callous, heartless, and the ever dormant sympathy in her cringes at her words, but it's what they all expect of her. What Jacob expects of her.

_Wouldn't want to let them down, _she thinks bitterly.

She ignores the heavy compression of her ribcage, the guilt that swells into her throat, when she sees his eyes narrow, harden, and his jaw tick.

"You know, Leah, being nice and _happy _might be a better 'fuck you' than this bitter bitch act. Aren't you tired of it?"

_All the time, _replies the small, hurt vulnerability she covets beneath layers of bitterness and resentment. She watches with detached emotion as he shakes his head, the angry tempo of his footsteps fading into the undergrowth, and thinks again,

_All the time._

_I hate everything about you. _

_Why do I love you?_

_I Hate Everything About You, Three Days Grace._

She'd always found Jared irritating. A typical male, all bravado and sports and careless words.

But there was a self-assured understanding that laced his words, flanked by Quil and Colin in wolf form, which reeked of smug superiority. He was beta now. Sam's right hand man now that Jacob had gone rogue. Jared was as slippery as a politician, with persuasive words and repeated rhetoric, trying to convince them to return to the pack.

But she could never go back. Never wanted to return to that place where she felt more lost than ever, more unwanted and more ugly. More trapped.

_He wants you home, Lee-lee, where you belong._

Something snaps in her then, Jared's words inciting the acerbic pulse of her blood in her ears, a relentless rhythm that rips her wide open. The vulnerable innermost chamber that contains the girl she once was is shaking, bars rattling, weeping at those forbidden, dangerous words. _He wants you home. He wants _you. But he didn't want her. He wanted numbers. And she was nothing more than a number to him anymore.

"Sam told me to beg. He told me to literally get down on my knees if I have to. This is -"

The rest of his words fade into a static white noise, fury and hurt overruling any other feeling. Sam told Jared to _beg _for her. Beg, just like she did all those years before, crying and screaming for him to talk to her, to let her in, to drop that calm detachment that she no longer recognised as Sam. Only to have him leave her.

She imagines herself phasing then, the rapid elongation of her limbs, the unrelenting brutality of her jaws clamped to Jared's jugular, the treacly molasses of his blood running warm down her throat. They would pounce then his wolf sentries, rip into her after only one second's consideration. One second to weigh her worth against his. One second that was all her life was worth to them. He was a brother and she was only the bitter interloper that no one would miss.

The warm placement of Jacob's human hand against her shoulder stills the raging tremor of her fury, leaving her exhausted. His eyes capture hers, a silent message of understanding before he speaks.

"Sam can beg all he wants, but Leah's free to choose her place."

Leah's gaze meets Jared's cool indifference as she says, "and my place is not with Sam, so you can scurry on home and tell him that I'm not leaving. He's wrong and I won't stand by and watch him murder innocent," she hesitates, swallowing the foul taste of wrongness she feels at defending the Cullens, "innocent people."

Jake's gaze meets hers, and pleasure flushes her cheeks at his look of almost pride.

"Well, then. I think you've got your answer," Jake says, grin quick and superior.

_Love is something of an art, _

_when we are led by such divided hearts, _

_painted black, their centre red, _

_beating now, they're loaded with regret, _

_full of memories that you can't neglect._

_I Could Never Belong to You, Sarah Blasko_

"Can you quit blowing that toxic cloud in my face?" Jake sighs. Leah takes an exaggerated drag of her cigarette, stubbing it out at the intolerant exhaustion on his face.

_Apparently the whole 'I'm proud of you' moment has well and truly passed, _she thinks ruefully.

"Can you quit being a whiny little bitch?" she replies snarkily.

He shoots her a weak attempt at a glare, and Leah rolls her eyes thinking that a girl scout selling cookies would be more intimidating.

"Sorry," he mumbles, the apology making the hard lines around her eyes soften.

"S'okay."

"Nah, it's not."

His head drops low and heavy across the stiff axis of his shoulders, and his next words tumble forth in an exhale, "Nothing's okay."

"I'm with you on that, Black," she agrees, hoping the flippant tone of her voice will cease this line of conversation.

"Does it ever fade? I mean, I just, I feel sick _every time_ I see them together. Like a physical punch to the heart."

She wants to make him laugh, drag him from this darkness, but the vulnerable need in his voice floors her, spinning words she never wanted spoken.

"I could tell you the usual crap, like 'time heals all wounds', but it just grows quieter, more secret, more intimate. You might not speak it out loud, you might not look at them and see forever anymore, but that small part of you, that hidden, clandestine longing, will always be there. Waiting. Hoping."

She laughs abruptly, humourlessly, and drags a hand through her shorn hair. The barbs prick her fingers unpleasantly and she forces a smile at the depth in his sympathetic eyes.

"Heck. Don't listen to me. I'm like the 101 of how _not _to move on."

"You should give yourself more credit. It was a shitty thing that happened to you. You're allowed to feel betrayed and angry. I do."

The honesty in his gaze makes her swallow thickly, heat prickling across the nape of her neck, heart an unsteady staccato. She breaks hers away, laughter rough edged with unease.

"Ah, look at us two heartbroken souls, Black. Honestly, we're a sobfest in the making. All we need is icecream and some hair ties. I'd let you braid my hair but I'm afraid yours is far more promising in the braids' department."

"There is no way you're getting near my hair. Quil would never let me hear the end of it."

"More promising every second," she replies, stepping closer under his wary eyes. She laughs as he flourishes a warding sign towards her.

"Be gone, evil spawn!"

"Get your mythology right, Black. Vampires are the ones whipped by that finger voodoo, not us."

"Right. Just let me get my silver bullets then. I'll be right back."

Their laughter quiets into companionable silence, the forest swelling with the sounds of life around them.

"Would you take Sam back if he begged you?" he asks warily.

She looks at him, takes in the earnest eyes and sunlit skin, feels her love for him beat stronger and stronger, a heartbeat in her ear.

"No."

His eyes flicker to her mouth and she licks her lips instinctively, looking away at her dirty feet. When she looks back, whatever emotion was stirring beneath the colour of his irises has been replaced by surprise.

"Truly?" he asks, "if Bella asked I don't think I'd have the will or desire to say no."

Jealously flares thick and ugly through her heart as he continues speaking, "but that's never going to happen now. Maybe once. But now she's dying and I can't stop it. I can't save her. Now everything that happened before, me loving her, her loving him, seems so pointless."

He stops, slams his fist suddenly into the trunk of a tree. His knuckles are shredded when he pulls it away, blood running in scarlet rivers down his wrist, but he keeps talking, almost frantic.

"I mean, this can't be it! This can't be how it all ends. But she's so stubborn, so selfish, always getting what she wants. Even if it means she-" he chokes, hands covering his eyes.

Something ugly and hurtful swells into her throat, exits her mouth before she can even think to stop it.

"Well, she's pretty much a corpse now, anyway. Guess she got her wish, after all."

Her body senses the oncoming attack, arching away from the violence of his hands. Too late. Her back slams mercilessly against the rough bark of a nearby tree, Jake's hands, trembling, around her throat.

"Don't. Say. That."

Survival instinct makes her submissive in the face of her alpha's fury, makes her remain motionless against the heat of his body, even as her legs beg to flee.

She's suddenly very aware of their bodies; her breasts brushing his chest with every heavy, expanded breath, his torso hard against the softness of her own, the curve of his mouth inviting, parted with his laboured breathing. His eyes meet hers, anger transformed into something heady, something that makes her breath come fast and her heart hammer wildly in her chest. His head inclines forwards, eyes darting lower to her mouth, before meeting hers again. He swallows hard, and she watches the movement of his throat with an ache she hasn't felt in so long. His mouth hesitates a breath from hers.

She closes her eyes at the sensation, then feels the warmth of his body disappear, his footsteps barely audible as he leaves.

She collapses back against the tree, heart restless and eyes wide.

_What the hell was that?_


End file.
